Refining the Painting

Once the underpainting is in place, the painting begins to come alive through colour. This is where decisions about balance, atmosphere and detail start to matter most, and where the image either begins to settle or starts to fight back.

I tend to paint in relatively thin layers. Slow-drying thick paint, and certainly impasto, is not really my thing. The first colour layer covers the canvas, though some of the sienna may still show through, and it remains fairly undetailed. This is the stage where I begin to find out whether I am going to like the painting. If not, I can change things there and then, or at least make a mental note to adjust certain elements later.

I once painted someone in bright orange in the foreground, but it proved far too distracting. I changed it to green and moved the emphasis to where I wanted the eye to go. That sort of decision is part of the process. A painting is not only about what is there, but about what it makes the viewer notice first.

The Crabbers - the orange is too distracting

Second colour layer

At this stage, colours and shapes are refined more carefully. The sky often begins to take shape, and by then I will usually have colours and cloud forms that are heading in the right direction. I may also find myself doing more detailed drawing in paint.

One of my pet hates is painting buildings or other near-to-mid-distance objects in a way that is detailed enough to make sense without becoming overworked. Conventional logic says to leave that sort of thing until the end. I understand that logic, but it does not always suit me. Wet-into-wet can be useful here, especially at this intermediate stage, though it is not something I use for everything. Used carelessly, it can produce sludge. Everything has its place.

Later layers

The third and later colour layers may be done a week, two weeks or even three weeks after the earlier ones. That is not only a matter of drying, though that matters too, since glazing does not work properly if it partially dissolves lower layers. It is also a question of avoiding staleness. I cannot give my best to an image if I am already getting heartily sick of looking at it.

The Crabbers - contrast and background

This is usually the stage for touch-ups and detailing. Sometimes the whole painting gets this treatment, and sometimes only part of it does. Before starting, it can help to oil up certain parts with a thin layer of linseed oil, which alleviates dryness in the paint. At lower levels, a little scratchy dryness can actually be useful.

By this point, assuming the earlier stages have gone well, I can concentrate more fully on colour, balance and atmospheric perspective. Scumbling can be very useful, though it may lighten thin layers and reduce detail. That is not always a bad thing. Too much detail can destroy the sense of distance and atmosphere. It is rather like a composer writing something called The Still of the Evening and then asking for it to be played at 120 decibels on electric guitars.

On the other hand, translucency can be extremely useful for darkening and enriching colours in lower layers, provided the paints chosen allow for it. There are effects that are impossible, or very difficult, to achieve with opaque paint alone. Mix yellow ochre or red into blue at the wrong stage and you get green or brown sludge. But allow the warmer pigments to sit below and place a thin transparent blue over them, and the result can be excellent. Glazing shadows with ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, or something similar, is hard to beat.

The Crabbers - the detail

Finishing

In the final stages, light accents may be added and details may need to be sharpened again. This is the point where one tries to bring the whole painting into focus without overdoing it. The temptation is always to keep adjusting, but a painting usually benefits from a certain amount of restraint once the main relationships are working.

At this stage I am looking for balance, atmosphere and clarity. The painting should feel resolved, but still alive. It should look as though it has arrived where it was always trying to go, rather than being forced into submission.

Final step

Lastly comes the varnish. Gamvar is probably the quickest to apply. It restores some of the vitality to the colours, rather in the way oiling up does temporarily, but more permanently once the work is complete.

Varnishing does not alter the painting so much as release it. The colours recover their strength, the quieter passages hold together, and the work finally becomes what it was always trying to be.